


Taught By Thirst

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2017 [72]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12783087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: 'any magical fandom/any non magic fandom. any. "How did you do that?"'Eli and Matt talk and share water, and Eli learns a secret about Matt.





	Taught By Thirst

Eli hadn’t spent so much time feeling like a child, well, since he was a child. But being trapped on the ancient Ancient ship Destiny, hurtling through space and  _ away from Earth _ at faster than the speed of light, and constantly being told  _ Don’t touch that, Eli _ and  _ Don’t do that, Eli _ and  _ Don’t go there, Eli _ was like childhood all over again. Back when his father was still around. Before his mother got sick. So he did his best to tiptoe around the soldiers and scientists - he was neither, was a college drop-out, was a self-proclaimed couch potato.

He’d found the Kinos - that was pretty useful. And he’d been useful during the offworld trek on the desert planet (another freakin’ planet!) and he’d found the sort-of shower thingies, so really, he wasn’t completely useless, but he wasn’t completely useful either. He was never meant to be on an off-planet expedition. He was just supposed to do math and physics. It was what he was good at.

Even Matt, who was a soldier, was more useful than he was. All Matt was qualified to do was shoot things. But he’d thought to get rubbings of the Ancient buttons in one of the shuttles to try to get a translation, and he could understand the flight systems, and after Dr. Brody had gone to sleep, Matt was still poking at things, shining his flashlight on things, and since Eli wasn’t supposed to go anywhere or do anything or touch anything, he sat beside Matt and talked to him.

About video games, mostly, and movies - Star Wars; Matt hadn’t seen the new trilogy, hadn’t seen any Planet of the Apes movies at all. Matt nodded and made listening noises in all the right places.

But finally Eli was out of words. He reached for his water bottle, remembered it was empty, let his hand fall to his side.

“I’m so thirsty.”

They were on strict water rationing till they found a water supply or a way to recycle liquid on the ship into something drinkable or...something.

Matt handed Eli his bottle without looking up from the control console he was squinting at. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Eli said. He unscrewed the cap, lifted it to his lips, and took a long, deep pull. So good. Cold. Pure. Not at all stale and dusty like it had been in Eli’s bottle. 

Silence fell between them, not quite awkward, mostly because Matt was focused on his work, but Eli had just taken a hefty chunk of Matt’s daily water ration. That deserved some kind of gratitude, didn’t it?

“So…” Eli searched for words. “You’re religious, huh?”

Matt glanced at him. “Yeah.”

“Were your parents religious?”

“Don’t remember. They died when I was four.”

Eli winced. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Here he was trying to make conversation to say  _ thanks for giving me your water _ and he’d had to go and dredge up painful personal history instead.

“Was raised by a priest. He died when I was sixteen.”

“Well, that explains your, uh, religiosity. Is that word? I think it’s a word. I went to MIT for science, not English.” Eli laughed nervously. Then he said, “How are you still religious? Now that you know about aliens and - and stuff.”

Matt glanced at him sidelong. “Why would aliens make me stop being religious?”

“Well, you know, God and creation and stuff versus aliens and science and - I’m sorry, I’m being offensive, aren’t I?” Eli jammed his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie.

“No,” Matt said, smiling slightly. “It’s fine. I’m not offended.”

“Are you not offended because you’re just a nice guy or because you don’t think science and religion are mutually exclusive or - sorry, I’m being offensive again.” Eli bit his lip. “You are a nice guy.”

Matt shook his head, amused. “Really. It’s fine. So, you went to MIT?”

“Yeah. Dropped out before I finished, but -”

“But you’re brilliant anyway.”

Eli hunched his shoulders. “I guess.”

“How many of Daniel Jackson’s orientation videos did you watch?” Matt asked.

“Just the one.”

“Was it just me, or did he seem really, really bored?”

Eli perked up. “Yes! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that. I’m pretty sure it was a punishment, right?”

“Possibly,” Matt conceded. “He was the guy who unlocked the Stargate for the first time, though. Might have been an honor.”

“I wish I could have seen the rest of them,” Eli said.

Matt snorted. “No, you don’t. Hey, since you’re into scifi, did you ever watch the show Wormhole X-treme?”

Eli snorted. “No. It was lame. A Star Trek knockoff only without cool ships and instead with a stupid starportal and - oh.”

Matt smiled again. “Yeah.”

“How did that happen? Was it some kind of intel leak?” Eli’s mind spun with the possibilities.

“The guy who came up with the idea for the show is an alien,” Matt said. “And the Air Force let it go because - well, if anyone ever  _ does _ leak the Stargate program, they’ll seem like -”

“Crazy fans.” Eli sank back in the co-pilot chair. “Wow. That’s kinda genius. And kinda cruel, too.” He glanced at Matt. “Did you ever watch the show?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. For sure. Better training for the program than a thousand Daniel Jackson orientation videos.”

“I wished I’d watched it,” Eli muttered.

Matt straightened up, rolled his shoulders. “Once I got read into the program at the SGC, we’d watch it every time we could. My training flight. Marathon it. Binge it. There was a drinking game for it.” He laughed softly. 

“I guess we’ll find out how true to life it was,” Eli said.

“I guess we will.” Matt sat back, studied the control console. “I’ve probably done all I can for tonight. We should get some sleep.” He scooped up his bottle, unscrewed the cap, and drank. And drank. And drank.

Eli blinked. Hang on. He’d left barely any water in Matt’s bottle, right? Yes, he was tired, but - 

He cleared his throat. “Hey, can I have some?”

Matt, who’d gone to screw the cap back on his bottle, paused. “Sure.” He held out the bottle.

Eli accepted it cautiously, lifted it to his lips, tipped his head back.

Cool, pure water, fresh and clean. 

Definitely not like the water he’d drunk out of his own bottle. Definitely more than should have been in the bottle.

Eli licked his lips, screwed the cap back onto the bottle slowly, mind spinning. Matt was being kind to him, sharing his water. Should he say anything?

Then he shook the bottle, listened to the water slosh inside.

Matt’s smile was sweet. If not for his uniform and his manly muscles and his haircut and his gun, he wouldn’t look like a soldier at all. Eli had crossed a lot of lines with his attempts at conversation tonight. Dare he cross another?

He caught Matt’s gaze, held it. “How did you do that?”

Matt’s eyes went wide. He cleared his throat, tried to smile his usual smile, but it didn’t work. “How did I do what?”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Eli said, and Matt winced. Eli hastened to add, “I’m not mad, and I won’t tell anybody, I swear, in case they try to turn you into a human water cooler. It’s just -  _ how _ did you do that?”

Matt bit his lip, looked away. “This is going to sound crazy.”

Eli poked his knee, and Matt met his gaze once more.

“Hey, I got beamed onto a spaceship, and then I traveled in hyperspace to another planet, and then I went through a wormhole and landed on another spaceship that’s billions of light years from Earth. I don’t think anything can possibly sound crazy anymore.”

Matt sucked in a deep breath. “I have magic.”

“Okay, that does sound crazy.”

Matt raised his eyebrows, and Eli said,

“I already promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. So - magic?”

Matt nodded. 

“And you use it to make water?”

“Water magic is all I’m good at,” Matt said. “I never learned anything else, not before my parents -”

“That was going to be my next question. You got it from your parents?” Eli leaned in, lowered his voice even though it was just the two of them in the shuttle and most everyone else was asleep.

“Yeah. My mom taught me. She had water magic. I don’t remember what kind Dad had. That’s my only real memory of her - teaching me to conjure water.” Matt held out one hand, and Eli handed him the bottle. Matt’s gaze went distant for a moment, and then he shook the bottle, and Eli could hear that it had even more water in it than before.

“The preacher guy who raised you, did he know?”

Matt said, softly, “He told me it was a gift from God.”

“How does it work?” Eli asked. “Do you just  _ wish _ water into existence and we have it?” Then he frowned. “Does it make you tired? Can you only make so much water in a day before you run out of - of  _ mana _ or whatever?”

“Manna? Like bread from heaven?” Matt looked perplexed.

“No, it’s - never mind. Obviously mana’s not a real thing.” Eli waved a dismissive hand. “Does anyone else know?”

Matt shook his head.

“I  _ promise _ not to tell anyone.”

Matt huffed. “You already said that.”

Eli studied him for a long moment. What did one say, when one was living a scifi show and discovered one’s new almost-friend had magic? “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re not wrong - I’m a terrible liar. And - what’s the point? We need you. You’re smart. If you need extra water to stay alive, withholding it to keep my talent to myself is pointless.” Matt stretched his arms up over his head, yawned. “I wasn’t kidding, though. We should sleep.” He stood, offered Eli a hand.

Eli accepted it, stood as well. They headed for the residential corridor. Matt actually walked Eli to his door, bade him good night. Eli sprawled out on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He was tired, but he couldn’t sleep, because his mind was spinning. Matt had  _ magic. _

Over the next few days, whenever he and Matt were alone, he asked about it, and Matt told him, and he learned. Matt could conjure water, and he could control water. He could make it freeze, and he could melt it if it was frozen. He couldn’t turn water into wine - he’d tried. 

“So magic is...genetic,” Eli said, when he and Matt were back in the shuttle, trying to learn more about its controls.

Matt nodded.

Eli squinted at him. “Are you human?”

“As far as I know. Don’t even have the ATA gene.”

_ “Does _ the magic make you tired?”

“No, but - it’s not without a price,” Matt said. “If I try to do too much at once, or if I’ve done a bunch of small things, I kind of - experience a rebound.”

“Rebound?” Eli echoed. “Like how?”

Matt bit his lip. “Well, since my magic is transformative, usually the rebound is similar.”

Matt really was a terrible liar. 

Eli said, “I’m guess whatever it is is embarrassing, and I won’t bug you for details.” Then he paused. “If you’re constantly making water and sharing it around, are you gonna get hit with rebound? Will it hurt you?”

Matt scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Rebound happens a little unexpectedly, and - you might have to cover for me.”

“Cover for you how? Like,  _ Sorry, teacher, Matt’s sick today, I’ll take his homework to him?” _

“Yeah.”

“I can do that.” Eli was pro at that kind of thing. Not that he’d often had friends to cover for. But he’d often had to cover for himself, or his mom. “Only - what did you do before you had someone like me to cover for you?”

“Just called in sick. The transformation always makes me sound sick, so.” Matt shrugged.

Eli sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, fine,” he burst out. “What do you transform into?”

“A woman.”

Eli stared at him.  _ “How _ did you hide this?”

“Well, when I was a kid, I turned into a girl, and - it’s not like I sprout long hair and cute dresses and heels. I’m me. Just -”

“With boobs and no dick.”

“Yeah.”

Eli looked him up and down.

Matt rolled his eyes. “I make a really ugly girl, okay? But if I bundle up in blankets and scarves and robes and stuff and cough a lot, well, I mostly look like me, I sound all wrong, people go away. It’s never lasted longer than a day.”

“But if you get sick here, won’t TJ -?”

“Which is why you’ll have to cover for me.”

“Okay,” Eli said, “but while I’m a better liar than you, I’m not a super great liar. Maybe you should tell TJ. I bet she’d be understanding. Being a she and all.”

Matt shoved Eli’s bottle at him. “Drink, and then help me work. You can start learning to read real Ancient.”

“Can you read it?”

“Better than most people give me credit for,” Matt said. “I always wanted to go to Atlantis.”

Eli kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Matt’s magic to come back and bite him in the ass, but Matt was always willing to share his water with other people, and he never radioed Eli with a desperate plea for help, and then they found ice on Planet Hoth that they could use for water and they weren’t short of water anymore, and Matt no longer had to magic water into existence.

And then things got complicated with Chloe, and Eli kind of wanted to hate Matt for stealing Chloe even though Eli never actually  _ had _ Chloe, but Eli was sure of one thing.

Matt never told anyone else about his magic.

Sometimes, when Matt and Eli were offworld together, walking along, Matt would offer Eli his water bottle, and Eli would accept, and it was their thing, and Eli thought even if no woman ever loved him like Chloe loved Matt, well, Matt and Eli were best friends, and in some ways, that was better.

**Author's Note:**

> Written the the What If AU Magic challenge.
> 
> I've only just started watching SGU, so go easy on me.
> 
> Title from an Emily Dickinson poem.
> 
> Thanks to Dingo the Dog, who listened to me read the story aloud for beta purposes.


End file.
